As I entered the International center of photography on Wednesday afternoon with some of my IDC classmates, I felt a bit out of the loop. As I roamed around the facility trying to find John Woods' exhibit on "Quiet Protest", I felt somewhat artistically uneducated. I looked and stared at many photographs on display, perplexed about what exactly the photographer was trying to convey. I thought to myself that maybe I didn't have the ability to appreciate photography like others did, until I caught a glimpse of certain Avadon fashion photography, which absolutely took my breath away. They articulated elegance and gave a sense of utter flawlessness. I started feeling a little better about my artistic eye, and decided that I would let go of all preconceived notions I had not only about photography, but also about my ability to interpret it.

When I came to Woods' exhibit, I was convinced I was definitely not artistically uneducated. I came upon Woods' first mixed media image, which depicted a field of daisies and in the very middle of it, a bold black gun. The first thing I noticed about the photograph was that it was black and white, even though it is a very unusual sight to see daisies in black and white. Something else I instantly noticed about the photograph was that the daisies, the blackness concentrated on the actual flower rather than the stem, looked like blood spatter to me. Obviously, Wood wanted to inform his audience of the havoc occurring during the 1960s, specifically the controversy that was caused by the Vietnam War. I found this mixed media image, as well as many others among the Wood exhibit to be quite intriguing. I loved the way that Wood used juxtaposition of nature versus violence in almost all of his artwork. It added a dramatic feel to all of his pieces, specifically those that seemed to have a hidden meaning beneath the surface, such as the photograph I have described above. I found it so interesting to solve the mystery within the photographs and learn how to look at the photographs in different perspectives. The second image in the exhibit, which depicted within it several images, one clearly illustrating a massacre scene did not make sense to me when I first looked at it. I failed to notice that in each subsequent image, the image of the massacre seemed to be getting magnified and more obscure, to the point where only the pixels of the image remained. It was refreshing and remarkable to be able to look at a piece of artwork in a perspective that is not your own.

Another aspect that struck me about Wood’s art was that it was very specific to position and display. In many cases in this exhibit, it was not the singular piece of art itself that made the impact, it was a collection of artwork pieces placed in a specific position next to each other. This deemed true with the 9 images of what seemed like the famous hypnosis image, or something that seemed to go around in circles forever, similar to a vortex. Evidently, these images could represent a various things: continuity, brainwashing, the feeling of being sucked into something, chaos, the ocean all in relation to the occurrences during the 1960s and the war. This vortex was represented in many distinct ways throughout the nine paintings, and I had to ask myself, why did Wood decide to place these images in such a specific order? Would it still evoke the same feelings in me otherwise?

This visit to the ICP opened my eyes and allowed me to experience and be exposed to a form of art I was unaccustomed to seeing professionally done. I enjoyed it to the fullest, and plan on visiting ICP again in the near future.